Thursday, May 21, 2009

ABC News Atlanta Segment on HSUS Donations: Now You See it, Now You Don't

I am truly confounded by the disappearing act on the WSB-TV news segment on HSUS donations. I haven't found anything to indicate the station doesn't stand behind its report. At any rate, the video is available here (although perhaps it will disappear at some point too?) and PetPAC has posted a transcript as well (same caveat). I hope the station reposts the segment on its website or issues some kind of clarification as to why it was removed.

Added, 5-22-09: YouTube posting of video here.

Added, 5-23-09: See it here and here, before it disappears (momentarily anyway)

5 comments:

Jan said...

Ooops the video is 404 not found.

YesBiscuit! said...

Jan, I may have fouled up the link by linking directly to the wmv file but I've changed it now to this:
http://www.toofiles.com/en/oip/videos/wmv/wsbonhsusreport.html

That does work for me.

Ron said...

I'd be careful with this report. TV stations don't pull reports down unless their lawyers feel like they are very close to being sued, and are likely to lose. It is very likely the report was flawed, and HSUS was about to rip the station a new one and walk off with a boat load of cash from a lawsuit.

YesBiscuit! said...

On the contrary Ron, the station apparently has told individuals who inquired that they routinely leave up stories for only a short period of time. I will reserve judgement and err on the side of journalistic integrity unless the station says otherwise. As far as "being careful" - tuh! I don't know who posted the video, it's not my business to ask but it appears to be legit as far as I know so therefore I linked to it. Which is the same as I do every day on this blog. If anyone's lawyers know the vid to be wrongly posted, I'm sure they're familiar with the proper procedures to have it removed.

Charles Winslowe said...

Yep, big Humane Society of the United States money and threatening a law suit was surely the case here. Even though they stated facts, the station had to weigh attorney costs to clear their name vs. dropping the story. This is a typical strategy for HSUS: Break every organization down by taking legal action or threatening to do so. Even if you are by-the-book and in your rights to do so, HSUS will file a law suit not to win but to intimidate you in bowing to their will. HSUS has dozens of well paid attorneys on staff just for this purpose. So why does the press refrain from pursuing such stories? How many 10 to 100’s of thousands of dollars will it cost us to get this story out and win our case? Sounds a bit like Scientology doesn’t it? Scare everyone with legal action if you say something against us. Keep it up HSUS, the government is itching to tax your $300,000,000 in the bank. And better yet, retroactively. You may have pulled the story but you really screwed up by doing so. The world is watching you even closer now.